Was just wondering if there is any apology or explanation forth coming for Sasha Digiulian being a no show at choss this past Saturday. I myself was not present, but as far as i understand many people pitched and where disappointed.But i reckon boven is more fun than choss right

Some of us went to St Peters on the Friday evening to hear her talk. We paid our entrance fee & proceeded to the next table where Sasha was signing her autograph. Told her we would see her the next day at Choss. That's when she told us that due to their tight schedule, she would be climbing at Boven instead. If we hadn't attended Friday's event, we would also have arrived at Choss expecting to see Sasha.

Last edited by TipToe on Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This whole "bringing internationals out" is weird. We pay a lot for gear, right? Ja, I know there are lots of reasons. But at least some of it is going to the distributors. Guys like RAM. Do these distributors contribute to these paid holidays for American pros? If so, I don't see what it does for SA climbing in the slightest. We have lots of rad locals who crank plenty hard enough for kids to get psyched on. Print posters of Pedders and Flex and Brian Weaver and give them to lighties at the crag. If you want to sponsor something, sponsor more crag days and school teams, esp. at PDI schools.

Agree with Pauls' point of view. Driving out to Choss to see Sasha climbing - IMHO better to rent or buy a video, you will see a lot more climbing.I believe that Neil Margetts arranged and may have paid for it too, I don't think any local industry people or money was involved.I do think Neil is trying to build psyche amongst South African climbers, younger ones in particular, but I don't think this is doing much for anyone except Sasha.

Last edited by robertbreyer on Wed Jul 10, 2013 3:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Rocklands is where all the strongest climbers in the world go at some point- Ondra, Honnold and dozens of boulderers. Many of them are sponsored to climb full time by the brands we love to climb in, and closely identify with. Ram has no involvement in them coming here, and often only find out about it because we listen to gossip at the local crag, campsite or gym. They survive on the work that us distributors do, and on the basis of that they should be obliged to put some work in for us. We got a talk out of Alex last year because I heard he was coming, which frustrated me because I had to go up country when he gave it. When I heard Paul was coming out we organized a talk from him too. If you hear of someone coming out, please don't make the assumption that we know- tell us, and ask for these event and we will see what we can do. Our only request is please email us first rather than using an open forum like this.

Dave Drulard from Black Diamond came out for the Tradathon. He is the international sales person, a job I would love to have- and he was there to answer any questions you may have. In Magalies this year Nick Reuff also from BD came out. He is responsible for the Magnetron and producing the X4. We have weekly contact with these people on various topics, and so inviting them out is relatively straight forward- whether they can is another matter. After the events we took them to local retailers and gyms to see the local market, and answer any questions the retail staff have of the products. For BD this is important because these complaints and suggestions go into designs that come out later.

As for using our athletes in our adverts I would encourage you to look at our adverts and see how often we use them. Even Ebert has been on the back page of SA Mountain because one of our athletes submitted a cool picture of him using our stuff. As a staff we try take as many climbing pictures as we can, and they do get used accordingly. Yes, we probably should produce posters of Gosia, Clinton, Alard, Steve and our other athletes, but we tend to use those pictures for event posters like the Tradathon, adverts etc. That doesn't mean we don't have huge respect for their accomplishments- we do sponsor them based on what they have done, and what we hope they will do.

I have to say that i haven't been climbing for year's oky not even a year, its been 10 months now. I have to be honest i have never ever seen so much self pity, stupid arguments, inhumain responce, and moral break down between people on a forum, climbing is really not a huge sport in this country and will never be if there is so mutch shit. This post and the appology post "just down right scary".

When i was introduced to climbing by Friends, they gave me a new reason to live life to the max (a persuite of happieness) and now this all just seem to fade away with this forum.

Lets say you get a local MX bike champ like Frikkie Meyer out and you get someone like Travis Pastrana (USA) out the same day i can bet you Travis will be busy, the point is young and upcoming climbers know local Hero's like Brian and Andrew P, and Neil has made efforts for them to talk to the young kids, but if you get Sharma Or Ondra or even Daniel Woods shit I will still go... I saw Brian climb the first time on Rodan in Boven and even that was MAJOR awsome for me will never forget it.

Why not make an effort to make life better than to sit and just complain...?Why not make a charity climbing day for Exploration to raise funds to help rebuild their gym?

Being possitive is what life is about... Yes Sasha was not at Choss, Hey she went to boven opend a New hard Line and she blogged and posted it all over for more people to come visit our local grags.

SA is small to the world, Don't make it even smaller

PLEASE I DO NOT WANT T START A DEBATE THIS WAS MEARLY AN OBSERVATION...

Almost a hundred people went to choss on Saturday, expecting to see Sasha climb a large number in a so called small community. Just asking with all the social media around it would not have taken much to inform people of a last minute venue change and people could/ would have driven the extra 90min to see sasha climb in boven. Climbing is a selfish pursuit i know, therefore i have no gripe with her going to boven because she wanted to, and big respect to putting up the new line and the massive international exposure for climbing in SA created by sending another amazing bolting effort by Andrew. Just think its good manners to inform people, just like packing out the rubbish you carry into the crag.

So if wanting to know why is "scary", try climbing the rock you live under.

If a top South African was coming to do some 30+ routes in KZN and it was less than an hour drive I would drive to watch them climb.

Just because I have no intention of being a world class climber, doesn't mean I don't enjoy watching a world class climber do what they do best. No difference between that and going to Kingsmead to watch cricketing greats play.

"There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation." Herman E Daly

I must put out an apology to all those climbers who made the effort to come see Sasha at Choss and to Mount Amanzi for there efforts. Arjan said he would post something but I see nothing was posted. I left that Saturday for 8 days to the Richtersveld where I had no reception so only noticed this forum post yesterday. I was so angry and disillusioned at the time, feeling that I do not want to ever help professional climbers again, but should have checked if some public apology was in fact done. I went to Paige’s presentation last night at the JHB MCSA and gained new hope. Paige’s attitude is so great, with her doing many things such as helping and coaching kids in Hilbrow that afternoon and her raising money for charity through her many slide shows. I think I should have seen the writing on the wall when for instance the offer to have a group of kids organised to meet Sasha at the airport was rejected and in fact her arrival time and place was kept a secret to make sure this could not happen. Personally in hindsight I feel it would have been better to give the large sum of money Sasha earned from the one slide show to Page’s charity drive instead. But we all live and learn.

I fully understand why Sasha would not want to be met by a group of children at the airport. What I don't understand is why she didn't turn up at Choss. Did she make a committment (writing? verbal?) to be there?

So, no apology or explanation from Sasha but karma is an interesting thing. She opened Rolihlahla/Overlord (I propose calling it Overhlahla) at 8c (there was even talk of 8c+ and the hardest FA by a woman) and got the double downgrade.